La Salle ecstatic to break 21-year tournament drought

PHILADELPHIA — With each team name that was called, Tyreek Duren’s anxiety grew.

It’s never easy being a bubble team on Selection Sunday and that’s exactly where Duren and his La Salle were perched when the most anticipated day of the college basketball season finally arrived.

Being one of the last at-large teams is even worse. As La Salle found out, the wait is torture.

The Explorers had to watch and one team after another went before them, including Big 5 rivals Villanova and Temple. La Salle beat Villanova and lost a close game to Temple.

It was agony, pure agony to every one dressed in blue and gold who gathered in a conference room in the Hayman Arena to watch the NCAA Tournament Selection Show Sunday night.

“They made us wait until the very end,” Duren said.

It was a wait 21 years in the making. Eventually, though, it was worth it.

Sometime around 6:30, La Salle’s name popped up on the big screen and the 25 or so people gathered in the room to watch the selection show let out a collective howl that could be heard clear across campus.

For the first time since 1992, the La Salle Explorers are going dancing.

Take a minute to let that sink in. La Salle, which hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since Lionel Simmons was rewriting the record book, was one of the teams picked for the 68-team field.

Never mind that the Explorers (21-9) have to play Boise State (21-10) in the first round Wednesday night in Dayton, Ohio. That game is for the No. 13 seed in the West Region and the right to take on fourth-seeded Kansas State Friday night in Kansas City.

And it does not matter that the Explorers received the next-to-last of the 37 at-large bids awarded, according to several internet sources, the bottom line is that La Salle NCAA Tournament drought is history.

“We’re going dancing,” redshirt junior Taylor Dunn said as he walked out of the conference room. “We’re going dancing.”

Originally, head coach John Giannini wasn’t going to let cameras or reporters in the room just in case La Salle did not have its name called. He had reason to worry. The Explorers were firmly on the tournament bubble after losing to Butler in the quarterfinal round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament.

Joe Lunardi and Jerry Palm, who have turned bracketology into cottage industry, both had the Explorers in the tournament in their final tournament preview, but they don’t sit on the selection committee. Lord only knows what happens in the bunker in Indianapolis.

Eventually, Giannini changed his mind and let the media in, which turned out to be a good thing. You can’t buy the kind of publicity that an NCAA Tournament bid can bring to a program. With YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and all the other social media outlets, high school players from around the country will see the video of the Explorers whooping it up after earning its first tournament bid in more than two decades.

Not everyone jumped when La Salle’s name popped up on the screen. Junior guard Tyrone Garland waited a minute before he joined his teammates in a mosh pit that had formed right in the front of the room.

“I had to wait to make sure it was true,” Garland said.

Duren did not leap to his feet immediately, either. The junior guard leaned back in his chair and let out a howl before he joined the celebration.

“I have the biggest headache in my life right now,” Duren said. “That’s how nervous I was.”

There’s a quick remedy for a headache. Nothing eases the pain of being one the first teams left out of the tournament, which is what the Explorers would have been if their name had not popped up on the screen.

“It was just relief. I saw all the cameras on me the whole time, I started sweating,” Duren said. “That’s how nervous I was. I didn’t know if they were going to call our name. People were texting me, saying that we were in, but none of them are on the selection committee so you don’t know what’s going to happen. Then then called our name and it was a big relief.”

Not just to Duren, Garland and Explorers coach John Giannini, but also to every one of La Salle’s loyal fans.

“They made us sweat a little bit,” Giannini said, “but it was worth it.”